In considering the volume of literary production in the Spanish dependencies in comparison with the inferior amount produced in the British colonies, one must take account of two important facts bearing on this subject. In the first place, there was in the Spanish colonies a very large number of men, soldiers and priests, who derived their support from the state, and were thus relieved from the necessity of acquiring a livelihood by their personal efforts or by expending mental energy in forming plans, and in executing them by the employment of their time and force. In the second place, a relatively large number of men in the Spanish colonies were celibates, and consequently their time, their thoughts, and their energies were not absorbed in providing for the current wants of families, or in accumulating property to be passed as an inheritance to a succeeding generation. In the British colonies there was practically no subsidized class; and every man was interested in providing for a family and in accumulating property for the benefit of his heirs. This was the absorbing thought of the British colonists as they pressed back the aborigines and advanced upon the wilderness. They, moreover, conceived the affairs of the colonies as their own affairs and felt no need of sending elaborate reports to the king, or of writing geographical descriptions and historical narratives for the enlightenment of the nation they had abandoned. They were content with a minimum of communication with the mother country. The Spanish colonies, on the other hand, lived by their connexion with Spain and by action of the Spanish government. [Sidenote: Spanish interest in America] The intellectual class of Spain had more interest in the American possessions than was manifested by any class in Great Britain with respect to the British colonies; and this superior interest of Spaniards constituted a demand for information concerning the New World, which encouraged persons in Spanish America by their writings to meet this demand. These introductory suggestions help to explain the remarkable literary activity in the colonies during the period under consideration. CHAPTER II EARLY WRITERS OF TIERRA FIRME I. _Bartolomé de las Casas._ II. _Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés._ III. _Pascual de Andagoya._ I [Sidenote: Letters and reports from America] The letters and reports of the adventurers, the discoverers, and the early settlers, during the period of exploration and conquest, constitute a noteworthy introduction to the literary history of the Spanish colonies in America; and the intellectual vigour of some of these writers was quite in keeping with the practical energy and daring displayed by their Spanish contemporaries in exploring and subduing the wilderness.